You can open the Properties of the Firefox desktop shortcut via the right-click context menu and check the "Compatibility" tab.

Make sure that all items are deselected in the "Compatibility" tab of the Properties window.

Hi again Bob,

I am using Windows 7, no special theme, just a straight download from Firefox. Are you saying something is amiss? That the full list of folders should show up when I bookmark? 

Your bookmarks in the edit dialogue from the star should scroll. You should be able to see all bookmark folders if you scroll and expand any folders that have sub folders.

Your book marks drop down list should be able to show sub folder (if you have nested folders and so created any sub folders) and also expand as far as individual bookmarks.

BTW The attached thumbnails expand in these messages when clicked. Just do not hit the delete [X] on something you added yourself. I have annotated your last screenshot

To point out scroll arrows, child folders and remind you to try the bookmarks sidebar and bookmarks library.

At the very least you do not have the Firefox button in use, you have the menubar toolbar option instead. That does affect bookmarks slightly but should not stop them from expanding correctly.

THanks for that tip. All the properties are unchecked.

Clicking the Star works fine. The bookmarks appear on the left, all of them. the problem is that when I want to bookmark a site, it is a pain. I cannot put it in the appropriate folder. It's a 4 or 5 step process to get it there.

Hi nantucketbob, I think that's the part which is puzzling for the volunteers. If you expand the folder list (the button to the right of the recent folders drop-down), why would it be incomplete? It either should be complete or not work at all. Is the problem that the scroll bar is missing? Can you capture a screen shot showing the folder list opened?

Is this the screenshot you wanted? I clicked the right down-arrow/caret, to the right of the "folder" line. My "folder" line shows the Bookmarks Menu. Clicking the down-caret beside it, the inside one, brings up the most recently used folders. Do you want a screenshot of that?

Thanks for taking an interest!

Did you try to click the folder to see if this open sub folders in case they are currently closed?

Hi nantucketbob, that's the part of the dialog we were looking for.

If you click the little triangle on the left side of Bookmarks menu, it should open and match your actual Bookmarks menu.

You may find it faster to use the keyboard to navigate the tree. For example, right arrow to expand Bookmarks Menu, f to jump to the first folder whose name starts with f, right arrow to expand that, and so on. Left arrow to close the current folder and/or move up a level, etc.

That little blue down-arrow is so small I never saw it! It is not visible when it first appears in the window. It is invisible when you click the right down-arrow, outside, with the blue bar highlighting the Bookmarks Menu option. I suggest it get fixed. It is WAY too small, and it is blue. But it works. It is not user-friendly. I have suffered with this problem for two or more years.

Hi nantucketbob, I agree it is hard to see the triangle in your screen shot (maybe it's black on dark blue?).

I think the problem is that on Vista and higher, the Firefox style sheet is designed around the Aero themes and somehow your dialog colors have been customized in a way that obscures the triangle. Probably related to whatever is styling the rest of the window to look like Windows XP.

I never customized anything, certainly not colors. But that's OK. I know what to do. It is a 3-click process, rather slow, but I can cope. (Imagine what I could do with all that spare time had it been just one click :).

Many thanks for your help, and the help of others!

Hi nantucketbob, you could use a custom style rule to modify the appearance of the currently selected row in the dialog, or the background color around the "twisty" that shows the open/closed status of a folder. I'm not sure what would look best on your system because I'm having trouble simulating your current display. But as an example, you could create a white background behind the "twisty" using a rule such as the following:

@namespace url(http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul);
treechildren::-moz-tree-twisty {
    background-color:#fff !important; /* white background */
    border:2px solid #006 !important; /* dark blue border */
    border-radius:4px !important; /* curved edges */
    padding-left:3px !important; /* extra whitespace for clarity */
    padding-right:3px !important; /* extra whitespace for clarity */
}

I'll just leave this for future reference; if you want to tinker with it, we can describe how.

Neat. I like programming. I would be interested in learning how to modify firefox. I did BASIC many years ago, dabbled with assembly, was about to do Pascal (it offered an AP course for high school; I taught high school) or C++ , but the school decided programming was not a course to be taught. What language is the code written?

Firefox itself is written in a confusing blend of C++, JavaScript, XML, and web technologies, but modifying the appearance would be done using CSS. Much of the interface is easy to modify, but the "tree" controls used for hierarchies like bookmarks are more obtuse.

To find examples of modifying the UI, you could search this site for posts containing the magic phrase that normally appears as part of the namespace at the beginning of UI rules:

there.is.only.xul - Search | Mozilla Support

Thanks muchly, but I think my programming days are over. Not that I would not love to get back into it, there are just too many other things that can occupy my time. One of my first computer tasks is to try to understand what is wrong with my Windows 7. It does not handle USB properly.